The National Collegiate Athletics Association Division-III indoor track and field championships were hosted in Birmingham, Alabama on March 14 and 15 and featured two Brandeis athletes: Sarai Sealy ’28 and Peterly Leroy ’28. Both stars made their returns to the indoor championships, bothhaving competed for Brandeis at last year's indoor championships. This year’s Judges duo improved since their debuts, with both setting personal bests at the competition.

Leroy competed on the first day of the championships, running the 400m as the 11th seeded racer. The Malden, Massachusetts native ran lap splits of 26.25 seconds and 30.00 seconds in the second heat, posting a new school record in the 400m. Unfortunately, the following heats made it so Leroy missed out on finals by just 0.42 seconds and 0.002 seconds respectively, short of the ninth-place runner, thus ending her 400m competition. Head track-and-field coach Miles Ketchum had high praise for the performance that earned Leroy second-team All-America honors. “Peterly ran a strategic race,” Ketchum stated in an interview with The Justice on March 20. “She is knocking on the door of the top eight in the country, and I’m excited for what she can accomplish during the outdoor season.” Leroy’s tenacity is clear — her 10th place finish was one higher than her seeding at the championships and four places higher than her placement at the 2025 championships.

Sealy competed on the second day of the competition in the triple jump, an event where she had already earned first-team All-America honors in two previous competitions. Still, the sophomore was seeded sixth going into the meet. Sealy fouled on her first jump attempt, but was able to fly to 11.68m on her second jump. Her final 11.98m leap lofted her up to fifth place through the preliminaries. Her position was stagnant through her first two jumps in the finals, but when it mattered most, the New Yorker delivered a season-best 12.18m jump that moved her up to fourth place. This placement marks Sealy’s best career placement and the best placement by a Brandeis student at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships since 2019. 

Sealy’s podium placement marked the end of the tournament for the Judges, but Sealy and Leroy each made major statements on the biggest stage. Despite being represented by only two athletes, Brandeis placed at a solid 39th of 61 teams in the field. More importantly, this performance seems to be the latest step forward for two elite Judges athletes coming early in the track and field season. Leroy, Sealy and the rest of the Brandeis track and field team will be competing through the rest of the Spring 2026 semester and into the summer. With the amount of improvement each athlete showed in Birmingham, the sky is the limit for Brandeis track and field.

Sealy, Leroy and the Brandeis track and field team return to competition at Bryant University’s Black and Gold Invitational on Friday, March 27.